Veiled in Shadow
by Nova Harman-Redfern
Summary: An eccentric new girl arrives in Sunnydale accidentally stumbling on the secret of Buffy and her friends. Offering her own brand of help, unfortunately, she's more trouble than anything. At the same time she's being hunted by both the Daybreakers and the
1. Default Chapter

Title: Veiled in Shadow  
Author: Nova Redfern  
Email: nova_redfern@yahoo.com   
Spoilers: Basic Night World/Buffy season 6  
Disclaimer: The Night World and its concepts belong to LJS, everything else belongs to me.   
Rating: 15  
Summary: An eccentric new girl arrives in Sunnydale accidentally stumbling on the Scooby's secret. Unfortunately, she's more trouble than help. While at the same time she's being hunted by both the Daybreakers and the Night World.  
Notes: feedback appreciated. It's been ages since we've seen any crossovers. Buffy setting after season 6 'Older and Further Away' not including 'Hell's Bells'.  
  
Part 1  
  
It was the worst thing that could ever happen. They had always been so damn careful. Clearly not careful enough. But it didn't help wasting time brooding about it. The cold hard fact was Nicoli Redfern's worst nightmare had come true.  
  
It had escaped.  
  
The basement windows were shattered, broken from the inside. All its meagre possessions were gone. The home tutor lay bleeding and dead on the floor amongst the destroyed debris. Everything in the basement had been ruined.   
  
The chains they usually kept it in were melted. It was on the loose, and probably seething with rage.  
  
"What the hell /happened/ here? Where the fuck /is/ it?" Tria Montell shrieked, clattering down the basement steps. She gaped in open mouthed horror at the ruined floor, the mess it had made. Her nose wrinkled in disgust at the body.  
  
Nicoli shrugged. Let Tria do all the yelling and screaming. If they both panicked, nothing would ever get done. They'd never find it.   
  
"It got out. It figured out how to use its powers."  
  
Tria stared in horror at the melted chains, the broken windows. "But it /can't/ use its powers! That's what Rayanne told us."  
  
"You really trust the word of the girlfriend of Hunter Redfern's latest unheard of male heir?" Nicoli snorted.  
  
Tria tugged at her raven hair, almost like she was trying to pull it out. Tria was so vain and self-centred the image of her bald was extremely funny. He let out an involuntary snicker.  
  
Tria glared at him. "What the hell are you laughing at?"  
  
Nicoli stopped laughing. Inside, he was in as much turmoil as she was. He wanted to scream and rip things apart. Control was one of Nicoli's trademarks, so he couldn't let go and freak out like he wanted to. It would be totally out of character for him.  
  
"Nothing, sorry, look, what are we going to do?"   
  
"Well /duh/!" Tria snapped, picking up the phone in the kitchen. "We've got to /find/ it."  
  
Nicoli agreed. If it was so dangerous it had to be kept in a locked basement and chained, guarded by Night People hand picked by the joint Council, why was it even still alive? Why hadn't it been killed when it was a baby?  
  
They would probably never know. He watched Tria as she pushed buttons rapidly. He sat on one of the stools by the counter. They were going to be in /so/ much trouble if they couldn't catch this thing.  
  
"Yes, Sir, It's Tria. It's happened. The thing we never thought would? It's escaped. It's killed its' teacher, and the binding spells have been broken." She paused, staring at her new blue sandals. "No, Sir, we've got no idea at all. No one else is dead, that we know if." She sounded a lot calmer than she looked. Her eyes were closed, she was pinching the bridge of her nose. "But, Sir, Nicoli and I - " She stopped, eyes opening. She was clutching the phone so hard she broke a nail. "Yes, Sir, I understand/" She hung up and sat next to Nicoli.  
  
Nicoli waited. Tria looked at him and shook her head. Nicoli sighed. They'd be dead by the end of the day.  
  
* * * 


	2. Part 2

Part 2  
  
It was better than she had ever imagined. Grace had never understood why she heard so many people moaning about small towns and how dull they were. She loved everything Sunnydale had to offer. A great climate, lots of interesting people.   
  
She'd been warned against coming here. People she'd spoken to travelling here told her Sunnydale was a weird place. Strange things happened there, people disappeared and were never seen again. Monsters were supposed to live in the shadows.  
  
That thought made Grace snicker. She knew all about monsters in shadows. The Night World was just that, really. Luckily for her, she didn't sense any in this place.  
  
Anyway, she didn't want to have to think about the Night World anymore. All she had to do was be a normal freshman at Sunnydale High. It would be kind of weird trying to explain why she had no parents. She hoped she could come up with a decent excuse.  
  
She *loved* the room she was staying in. It had a big comfy bed with lilac sheets and giant windows that let in tones of light. She had to share the house with a college girl called Jal, who was nice enough. And human, as well.  
  
She was too excited to wait around, eager for her first day of school in the morning. The sun was setting as Grace left the house to explore the town. Jal told her the happening scene in Sunnydale was a club called the bronze. She'd check that out at some point. She wanted to see the rest of the town first.  
  
The whole place didn't take her that long to explore. Grace was amazed to find her way about with surprising ease. The ground had a sort of *thrum* to it. A feeling she couldn't quite put into words. It spoke to her of power and evil greater than even that of the Night World.  
  
~No, no, no!~ Grace thought, extremely irritated. She had had *enough* of evil. She had come here to escape from evil.   
  
During her explorations, she came across a wonderfully impressive cemetery. The stones were well kept, large and magnificent. She wandered through, smiling at the peacefulness, enjoying the quiet of the place, admiring some of the impressive crypts.  
  
A commotion to her right disturbed her. Sounds of fighting and angry grunts. She was certain she heard bones snapping. Grace sighed. She'd heard the sounds before. Some poor girl getting her ass kicked by a vampire, no doubt.   
  
Okay, she'd play the heroine this *once* and save the say. She marched around the grave where the sounds were coming from, snapping a sturdy branch of a conveniently near by palm tree.   
  
Hang on a minute. There was something wrong with this picture. The vampire was getting *his* ass kicked by a *girl*. And not a particularly big or muscular. A small girl with short blond hair, dressed in a sparkly blue halter-neck top and black leather pants.   
Totally inappropriate if she was a vampire hunter. She didn't seem to care the vamps could plainly see her and figure out who she was and hunt her down.  
  
"You know I'd have thought you'd have learnt your lesson the last time," the small blonde was saying in an almost chatty tone. "What *is* it with all this male ego crap?" Her moves were almost prematurely fast, but Grace couldn't sense anything inhuman about her. "Obviously seeing your friends dusted isn't warning enough to make you the smart one, but *no*, you've got to come back for more. And what - to be humiliated? Staked?" And if to prove her point, she did just that.  
  
To Grace's amazement the vampire burst into a fine cloud of ash and dust. Gone. Poof. Just like that. Grace ducked out of sight behind a tombstone before the girl could see her.  
  
"I could have sworn there was someone there," the blonde muttered, before walking off.  
  
Grace stood up, curious. Well that was - interesting to say the least. There'd been something weird about that vampire's *face* as well. It had been hideously ugly, and that was being polite.   
  
~So much for escaping the Night World and evil~ Grace thought, as she made her way home. She'd run from the world of the supernatural, only to find herself faced with another. She was extremely dejected when she went home into her room.  
  
Maybe she could at least hope high school would still be normal.  
  
* * * 


	3. Part 3

Part 3  
  
Christine hesitated outside Thierry's office in the Circle Daybreak mansion. She didn't know if she should tell or not. The Night World had a completely different opinion of it than she did.  
  
She couldn't understand why they treated it so poorly. If they wanted to creature to work for them, use it's powers for them, then why keep it locked in a basement?  
  
"Chrissie? What is it? You've been hovering around for at least fifteen minutes."  
  
Christine cringed as Lady Hannah approached her. Old story, she'd been so wrapped in her own thoughts she'd forgotten there were other people around. One of her great faults, that. Sometimes living in her own head was more preferable to reality.  
  
Occasionally she came out into the real world and learned things. "I found something out. I heard Anton and Martha talking, and I'm not sure if I should repeat it or not." She couldn't bring herself to meet Lady Hannah's eyes.   
  
Lady Hannah was one of the important people, why should she be interested in what an ordinary witch like Christine had to say?  
  
"Please, do tell me. If Anton and Martha have something to say, then it's usually very important." Lady Hannah was actually interested?  
  
"Well, um," Christine stared at her bare feet on the beige carpet, "they were talking about the latest buzz in the Night World, and they're all angsty and on edge cause it's escaped."  
  
Lady Hannah was silent. She stared at a strange painting on the wall just above Christine's head. The painting was full of colourful shapes and swiggles that didn't make a whole lot of sense. Christine thought it was kind of like looking inside her head.  
  
Lady Hannah still hadn't said anything, and she didn't seem too alarmed, Christine wasn't sure if she'd done a good thing or not. After all, the whole point of being Circle Daybreak was to do good things, right?  
  
"Whatever this is, maybe it has some sort of soul and it can be a real person if we find it and help it before they hunt it down like an animal," she suggested.  
  
"Escaped," Lady Hannah echoed. "I don't suppose you heard if they had any leads on where the creature might have gone?"  
  
Christine shook her head. "No, they didn't say."  
  
"Thanks Chrissie, that's a helpful thing that you told us." Lady Hannah smiled warmly.   
  
Christine breathed a sigh of relief. "Look, there's I just want to know - what is this creature?"   
  
Lady Hannah shook her head. "It's best that we don't tell everyone at this early stage."  
  
"Is it dangerous?"  
  
"It could be, and we don't want to cause panic, understand?"  
  
Christine nodded. Well, at least she'd done her good deed for that day. Maybe this creature wasn't such a bad person. Just cause it was a creature, that didn't mean it didn't have feelings.  
  
"Don't worry," Lady Hannah smiled reassuringly. "We'll find it before it can do any damage."  
  
Christine nodded, but she couldn't help thinking, she was kind of curious to see what this creature could do.  
  
* * * 


	4. Part 4

Part 4  
  
High school seemed to be going okay. So far Grace had seen nothing out of the ordinary. People were really nice, except for the snotty mean cheerleaders, who she had decided to try and avoid.   
  
She hid in the bathroom during a break between periods, trying to figure out what she was going to do at lunch.  
  
"Hey, you're the new girl, right?" The girl who came in was extremely pretty with long brown hair, hanging straight down her back, almost shimmering in the fluorescent light. Her eyes were a warm chocolate colour, she was smiling brightly. "I'm Dawn," she offered.  
  
"Grace. Does that Jolene Carter girl do anything but ask questions?" Grace didn't want to answer questions about where she came from, or who her parents were. She didn't like the idea that if she wasn't rich, she didn't matter.  
  
"Jolene thinks she's queen of the world. She needs a demon sent after her to kick her ass."  
  
Grace found herself giggling. "Yeah, something like a Valknaar."   
  
"What are they?" Dawn eyed her curiously.   
  
"Eat the flesh of their victims, keep 'em alive for a few days them eat their bones and harvest the organs," Grace answered. And they looked really hideous too, scaly and pussy and not to mention tentacles, plus that sicky green colour they were. The pictures in the books had not been pleasant.   
  
"Yeah, and here's me thinking I could just sic Spike on her," Dawn muttered, giggling herself.  
  
Grace's eyebrow rose. Somewhere in the back of her mind, that name rang a bell. Something to do with dead people, lots of them, and more boring books. "Who?"  
  
"This guy who's a sort of friend, who can be a real jerk when he wants to be. And used to be real nasty."  
  
"Oh, there it is. He's a vampire, now I remember." Grace was pleased she'd figured out something.  
  
Dawn was giving her an odd look. Grace flushed, guessing demons and vampires weren't much good for conversation openings, when most people thought those things were just stories. Then again, Dawn had been the one who'd brought the subject up.  
  
"So, Uh, I take it you know about Sunnydale's little secret them?" Dawn was watching her closely.   
  
"I heard about the whole Hellmouth thing. Your kinds of vampires are sort of ugly, though," Grace made a face, leaning against one of the sinks. Well, Dawn wasn't saying she was crazy, which was at least something good. "This whole place is weird. I saw one last night, I would have staked it, but some *girl* got there first."  
  
Dawn waved a dismissive hand. "Oh, that's my sister, she's a Slayer."  
  
"That explains it." Grace didn't know if she was too keen on the idea of knowing there was a Slayer around, which meant other vampire hunters were real after all.   
  
What if this Slayer decided to come after her? What if she told someone, and the Night World heard and found out and came after her? Then again, vampire hunters, Slayers, whatever you called them, were usually against the Night World. She wasn't sure how she felt about this Slayer thing yet.   
  
"Is there anything else here I should be aware of?" she asked cautiously.   
  
"What'd you mean by our kind of vampires? Are there different kinds where you come from?"  
  
Grace opened her mouth then closed it. Dawn was so obviously human, she didn't know about the Night World. She didn't want to be blabbing Night World secrets and getting into even more trouble.   
  
"It's kind of a long story," she said evasively. Then she had another thought. "Are there any people around here who are into witch craft - the good kind of magic?" Nice witches usually meant Circle Daybreak, they might be more helpful to her.   
  
Dawn nodded. "Yeah, I know a few. How come?"  
  
Oh, too many questions. Grace tugged at her dark hair nervously, starting to get flustered.   
  
"Are you a witch?" Dawn asked.   
  
The girl was the only one who had spoken to her. She knew about magic and vampires and demons and stuff, and Grace really didn't want to scare her off with her own side of those things. "Not exactly, I'm sort of, something else."  
  
Before Dawn could say anything the bell rang. Dawn signed in annoyance. "Great, just when things were starting to get interesting. How about we continue at lunch?" She grinned. "Trust me, whatever you are won't shock me."  
  
"Sure," Grace said dully as Dawn waved and left the bathroom. ~Don't be so sure~ she thought as she left herself.   
  
* * * 


	5. Part 5

Part 5  
  
Maybe coming to the house hadn't been such a good idea after all. Brooke looked around the messy basement, left just the way it was when the creature had escaped.  
  
The former guardians were no longer around. Brooke would have liked to question them, but the Council had already taken care of them.  
  
Her nose wrinkled at the sickeningly sweet stench of rotting flesh. The body had been left for her to examine. Brooke was dreading the thought of looking at it. She was a witch, not an M.E. And she was only nineteen at that. She had thought her job was to find the creature, not pick apart its' victims for cause of death.  
  
Shouldn't the Council have someone more qualified to do this sort of thing?  
  
Brooke sighed, tying back her long blonde hair as she descended the basement steps.   
  
The face had been torn off, an eyeball was hanging out of its socket. Bloody bone showed through the ripped flesh. Bending closer, she thought she saw something that looked like claw marks across the chest.   
  
"It looks something like a shifter kill, doesn't it?"  
  
Brooke had to force herself not to jump at the unexpected voice behind her. "Didn't you ever learn it's not polite to sneak up on people?" she snapped, turning to glare at the speaker.   
  
Dylan Redfern just smirking, enjoying her annoyance. Tall, muscular, penetrating emerald eyes and model perfect smile, with his expensive taste in designer clothes he thought he was God's Gift to vampirism. This case was going to be tough enough to work on without him driving her up the wall.   
  
"Jumpy, much?"  
  
Brooke glared again. It was extremely tempting to give him a blast of orange witch fire and wipe that smirk of his face. "Drop dead," she snapped.  
  
He just chuckled. extremely amused. "Might want to watch that temper of yours. I'm sure you'd like a good report at the end of this."  
  
Brooke forced herself not to react. Unfortunately, because of his family name and Council connections, Dylan could determine her fate. Hell, he could probably have her killed off he really wanted.  
  
"Whatever. Look at that - " she gestured at the body -"and tell me what you see."  
  
Dylan brushed a strand of wheat coloured hair out his eyes and studied the corpse. "Someone who's dead."  
  
"Seriously." Brooke gritted her teeth.  
  
"Seriously, someone who's dead. And who looks like they've been torn up by a large animal," he added before Brooke could say anything.  
  
Brooke nodded. "Yeah, that's what I was thinking." He'd mentioned that before. At least they were on the same wavelength about something. What she didn't understand, however, was if the creature was just some sort of shapeshifter, why all the fuss?  
  
"So now what? Where do we start looking for this thing?" Dylan checked his watch. "Whatever. Call me when you've got a lead."  
  
"Where the hell are you going?" Brooke demanded as he started jogging off up the steps.  
  
"I have a date." And he was gone.   
  
Brooke's eyes rolled. Before the end of this mission, she was going to wind up setting this creature on *him*.  
  
She left the basement herself heading up for the attic.  
  
"Is he gone?" one of the two girls waiting by the ritual asked.  
  
Brooke smirked. "He couldn't get out of here fast enough." She waved her hand and a circle of candles on the floor burst into flame.   
  
"Is this going to work?" the other said doubtfully.   
  
Brooke shrugged. "I hope so."  
  
* * * 


	6. Part 6

Part 6  
  
"We don't even know where to start looking is the problem." Hannah sighed, leaning back in Thierry's office chair. Her eyes closed as she felt Thierry's strong hands massaging her shoulders.  
  
"Are we sure Christine heard correctly? She's not exactly all there, you know."  
  
Hannah's eyes opened and she reached for a pencil on the desk, moving her fingers around it. "Certain. She was so nervous about whether or not she should tell. I really think she's on to something."  
  
Thierry nodded. "Well I've asked Anton and Martha to come in and tell us exactly what's going on."  
  
Hannah couldn't understand why, if they'd heard the creature was on the loose that neither had come forward and told the Daybreak leaders sooner. "I'm worried about her."  
  
"Christine?"  
  
"No. The creature - does she actually have a name? I get weird calling the poor thing 'it' or 'creature'."  
  
"Grace," Thierry said softly, looking at a painting on the wall opposite him. "Her name is Grace."   
  
Hannah had to fight to keep from snickering. The creature both the Night World were afraid of, to the point of keeping it in chains in a locked basement in an unknown and hard to find out location, was called *Grace*? It was just so - unlikely. "So what is she, anyway? I hate having to pretend I know when I really don't have a clue."  
  
Thierry still had his back to her. Hannah put down the pen she was messing with. She didn't like the feeling she was getting from him.   
  
"I'm not telling you. In fact, while this thing is on the loose - "  
  
"*Grace*," Hannah snapped. "Use her *name*."  
  
"Fine, sorry. As I was saying, you're going to go to England with Martha for a while, well out the way where nothing can hurt you."  
  
Hannah's eyes rolled. When Thierry started making decisions like this, she knew better than to start complaining. "Fine," she said, and walked out the office as calmly as she could.  
  
Witch Martha Forrest as coming down the hall, probably on her way to find Thierry. Hannah grabbed her arm. "Hey, hang on a minute, there's been a change in plans."  
  
"Oh, right. Thierry told you - "  
  
"We're not going to England. We're going to rescue Grace ourselves." Hannah wasn't going to sit around idly while poor Grace whatever she was was hunted down.   
  
"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Martha protested weakly as Hannah dragged her off down the corridor. "We don't know where to find her."  
  
Hannah hadn't really thought this thought. She sighed with irritation. "I want to do something to help this girl. I don't care what she is. She doesn't deserve to be treated this way." Thierry was protective of her, due to the whole cycle with Maya killing her every time he'd found her, she could understand that. But there was such a thing as being *too* protective.  
  
"Okay, okay, I think you've got a point," Martha said, pushing her strawberry blonde hair behind her ears. "I do actually have a lead on where to start looking. I was going to tell Thierry and Anton, but..." She shrugged.  
  
Hannah smiled. "Great. Where is she?" She wasn't concerned about *how* Martha knew at the moment. Any lead was better than no lead. "Where?"  
  
"In a town called Sunnydale. You're going to love this - rumour has it the place is on a Hellmouth."  
  
Hannah blinked. "What's a Hellmouth?"  
  
* * * 


	7. Part 7

Part 7  
  
"So how is this possible? You've been alive for like - thirty *thousand* years?"  
  
Grace was beginning to regret ever opening her mouth. She had taken it as a good sign when Dawn hadn't freaked out at what she was. Only then Dawn had taken her home after school to meet her sister the Vampire Slayer and her friends.   
  
"Hardly," an ex vengeance demon named Anya snorted from her seat on the couch. She was lounging against the only boy in the group, Xander, who didn't seem to have any supernatural powers. He was handsome with dark hair and deep dark eyes without flaunting it. "Their kind was extinct thousands of years ago. Or all extinct but one, so I heard."  
  
"So you have powers no one's ever heard of?" There was one witch in the group, Willow, who seemed the nicest apart from Dawn.  
  
"I'm still figuring things out." Grace made a face. "When you're locked in a basement cause people are scared of you, they tend not to teach you what you can do with magic."  
  
Grace didn't like the constant questions. The one who hadn't said much was the Slayer. She just sat on the couch beside her sister and *watched* her with an intense gaze.  
  
Grace guessed she could understand they were wary of her. The Night People had been scared of her, and they had been horrible to her. She hopped these people would be the same.   
  
"So why come here of all places?" This from Anya again, who never seemed to run out of questions or opinions.  
  
"It sounded nice," Grace answered simply.  
  
"Hmm. Most demons come here cause of the whole Hellmouth and power attraction thing."  
  
"Not a demon," Grace said sharply, glaring at Anya.   
  
"Whatever," Anya waved dismissively.   
  
"So if you escaped from this - Night World? - place, will they be looking for you?" The first question from Buffy.   
  
~What a stupid name~ Grace thought. "Night Worlders are mean. I didn't think they'd bother looking here." She stared at the carpet. "I'm not bad - I just wanted a normal life."  
  
There was a moment of awkward silence. Grace looked up to see eyes shifting and uncomfortable glances.  
  
"I don't know if normal is what you're gonna get here, but you'll be okay with us." Dawn gave her a comforting smile then glared at the others. "Won't she?"  
  
There were murmurs and nods. Buffy chose that moment to stand up. "As fun as breaking in a new Scoobie is, I've got to patrol. I'll catch up with you later." She left the living room, picking up and slipping into a black leather jacket slung over the banister and left the house.  
  
"Scoobie?" Grace asked.  
  
"Long story. Dawn'll fill you in." Xander stood up too. "Hey you know what? We should show Grace the Bronze? Who's up for that?"  
  
"It's a school night," Grace pointed out.  
  
"It's the only club in town. The place to go. It'll be *fun*," Dawn insisted.  
  
Grace nodded. "All *right*," she said reluctantly. She felt out of place in a group already so well established, a little uneasy as they bantered back and forth, walking to the local club.  
  
She glanced over her shoulder several times, sure she had heard something. She got the uncomfortable impression she was being watched. But that was silly.  
  
No one knew where she was.  
  
Right?  
  
* * *  
  
Even though the girl seemed nice enough there was definitely something about her. Not just the fact that she was a species that was supposed to be extinct, according to Anya.   
  
But it was this whole Night World thing that disturbed Buffy the most as she wandered through the cemetery. It sounded important - a whole new *world* she'd never heard about? It seemed so unlikely.  
  
Then again, if it was so important then how come Giles had never told her about it? Maybe it was a different dimension or something Grace had escaped from. It was just - well - Dawn had a habit of attracting trouble.  
  
And from the sound of it a run away from a place none of them had ever heard of with a name like Night World, sounded like it was going to bring trouble.   
  
Buffy stopped dead, hearing the tiny tell tale crunch of a foot snapping a twig lying on the ground. She whirled around, fist connecting with a stomach. A figure grunted in pain and crashed against a near by tombstone as she stood in a stance, ready to kick his ass if he fought back.  
  
"Jesus Christ, lady, do you punch everyone within an inch of you?" The figure groaned, and pulled himself up. He was tall and muscular, golden blond hair glinting in the moonlight. His eyes were his most startling feature, a bright green with a silvery sheen. She didn't get vampire signals from him. Like Grace he had a bizarre feeling about him.  
  
"Being sneaked up on in a cemetery can make you kinda wary," she answered, not taking her eyes off him.  
  
He smiled sheepishly. "Sorry, I thought you were someone I know."  
  
"Really." It was a line Buffy had heard before. She moved back from him, raising a hand to her temple. Something strange was going on in her mind. She couldn't quite describe it. Her mind was telling her to relax, calm down and let this guy smooch her off her feet. Yet at the same time, the part of her that was the Slayer was screaming *stake* *him*, *stake* *him,* *stake* *him*. "Who are you?" she demanded.   
  
The guy blinked and stared at her. She was certain it was her imagination but his eyes weren't nearly as bright as she'd first thought. They were just a normal leafy green colour.   
  
"Zaide Mandrill. You?" He was still staring at her like something he hadn't expected had happened.  
  
"Buffy Summers. And leaving now." She turned and walked away quickly.   
  
"Hey wait a sec," Zaide called after her.   
  
"I'm actually looking for someone. Her name is Grace Draco. You don't happen to know her do you?"  
  
"Nope, never heard of her." A lie, but he didn't need to know that.   
  
"Oh. See you round." And he was gone. Almost like he had just *vanished*. She breathed a little easier out of his presence. What the hell *was* that guy? And what did he want with Grace?  
  
* * * 


	8. Part 8

Part 8  
  
Zaide didn't understands why Dylan couldn't get off his ass and deal with this Grace creature by himself. But Dylan was too busy screwing his latest conquest to be bothered.  
  
Zaide wasn't too thrilled at the thought of working with stuck up with Brook Rouge who acted most of the time like the world owed her a favour.  
  
He rubbed his nose where the petite blonde's fist had introduced itself to him. The girl was human though and through, he was pretty sure of that. But she had been completely resistant to his mind control. What would a small pretty girl like that be doing wandering around a cemetery at night, anyway?  
  
"Where the hell have you been?" Brooke demanded when he got back to the motel room they were renting.  
  
She had a collection of spell books and scrolls around her.  
  
"Out," he answered curtly.  
  
"The location spell said she was in this town. Did you see her?"  
  
Zaide shook his head. "Nope." He sat on the other bed and turned the TV on.  
  
"You're lying." She glared at him. "You're bruised and that nose looks kind of damaged." Brooke smirked nastily.  
  
Zaide shrugged, wincing a little. Crashing into a tombstone had hurt more than he had thought. He hadn't wanted to show any weakness in front of the super-strong blonde, Buffy. What the hell kind of stupid name was *Buffy* anyway?  
  
"I had a little run in," he told her.  
  
"Vampire hunter?"  
  
Zaide hadn't thought of that possibility. "I guess."  
  
"Well connecting with the Nether Realm turned out to be a waste of time," Brooke grumbled, closing her spell books. "They know nothing of Grace's origins. "Or if they do they're being stubborn pains in the ass and not telling."  
  
"They could be lying. She could just be too powerful for them to defeat," Zaide said, flipping through the TV channels and eventually settling on MTV.  
  
"It seems way too unlikely that a creature like that could exist." Brooke shook her head, wandering over to the window and peering out between the tightly closed drapes. "There's something weird about this town. The energies are off, auras are confused. There's power here, but I don't know where it's coming from. You feel anything?"  
  
With no witch genes of any sort in him, Zaide was usually completely duff when it came to tuning into power and magic. Yet this strange place even set *his* nerves on edge. Not understanding why, or how, he hadn't mentioned it. "Something," he admitted reluctantly. "But mystical energies isn't the reason we're investigating this town. We're here to find Grace and kill the bitch. Unless you want Dylan Redfern to have our guts." He grunted and shook his head in disgust. "And knowing that bastard, he'll *literally* have our guts."  
  
Brooke sighed, nodding in agreement.  
  
A few hours later Zaide found himself falling asleep. He wasn't prepared to spend all night dreaming about pretty little Buffy Summers and her super strength.  
  
* * * 


	9. Part 9

Part 9  
  
Grace found herself smiling as she headed back to her room at the boarding house. The evening at the local club had been more fun than she'd thought. She was extremely pleased that Dawn's friends hadn't freaked out about her...abilities.  
  
They were all so comfortable with each other. Grace wondered how good that must feel, having a large group of people to feel comfortable with. (She wasn't too sure she liked Anya all that much, the girl didn't seem to have a concept of *tact* in mind).  
  
It seemed like she might be able to settle down here after all.  
  
Grace was woken sometime in the middle of the night by voices outside her door. She pushed her messy dark hair out her eyes, trying to work out what was going on. The voices were sending chills down her spine, but why would a couple of people talking do that?  
  
Her half awake mind couldn't hear what they were saying...so why had the voices woken her? She sat up, fumbling for the lamp on the bedside table. Her hands froze as the bedroom door started to open.  
  
Didn't these doors have locks? Had she bothered to lock it earlier? She couldn't remember.  
  
Panic overwhelmed her, and not knowing what else to do, Grace lashed out with the power in her mind, the power the Night World had been desperate behind. She hadn't *meant* to use any power, but...her heart was racing...what else could she *do*?  
  
Finally finding the light switch on her lamp, Grace gulped as she saw the blood splattered all over the wall. The pretty lilac sheets were covered in bits of exploded body parts.  
  
"Crap," she muttered, getting out of bed The carpet was littered with gore and goo as well.  
  
She stuck her head out the hall, peering down the corridor. No one seemed to be about. Was all that mess one person or two? Grace couldn't tell.  
  
She closed the door again, standing there staring at the mess. Now what the hell did she do? She stared at the phone, finally picking up the receiver. Could she call Dawn? How could she explain this?  
  
* * *  
  
Dawn groaned, ready to throttle the idiot who would be stupid enough to think that calling at 3.10 a.m. would be a good thing to do. Why wasn't anyone else *answering*?  
  
"This had better be important," she grumbled.  
  
"It's Grace. I need help! I did something really really stupid and I don't know what to do!" Grace's voice was shrill, filled with panic.  
  
Dawn sat up, rubbing sleep out her eyes. "Done what?"  
  
"Sort of exploded someone. Or maybe two someones. It was an accident!"  
  
"How do you accidentally explode someone?" Dawn wasn't so sure she wanted to see someone exploded. Se had known what Grace was, she should have figured something would happen. Something *always* happened with Sunnydale's new comers.   
  
"They were sneaking into my room, thinking I was asleep. I lashed out, I didn't mean to!"  
  
Grace's panicked whine was so pathetic Dawn almost felt sorry for her. "Okay, okay, I'm coming. Gimme your address."  
  
Twenty minutes later Dawn was starting in shocked horror at the disgusting scene in Grace's bedroom. Her hand was pressed firmly over her nose and mouth. The stench was indescribable.  
  
Grace stood in a corner, staring at the floor. "I didn't mean to," she whimpered for about the tenth time.  
  
Dawn just stared at her, speechless, her stomach heaving. "I...I guess we'd better get cleaning," she finally managed.  
  
The rest of the night was spent scrubbing and picking up the mess. Dawn had lost count of the many times she had run to the bathroom to throw up. The sun was bright in the sky by the time they'd finished. The bed sheets and...bits...were in three trash bags ready to go to the dump.  
  
Tired and smelly and aching, they both watched the garbage trucks pick up the bags, disposing of the evidence for them. Grace was almost in tears.  
  
Dawn's sympathy had long since evaporated. She could be happy never to set eyes on the girl again. "This - "  
  
"Is never going to happen again, I swear!" Grace insisted. She sniffled. "I'll be gone by the end of the day."  
  
"I'm going home." Dawn left the boarding house without looking back. The sooner Grace left, the better.  
  
* * * 


	10. Part 10

Part 10  
  
Hannah didn't see the big deal about the town of Sunnydale. It just seemed like a nice, typical Californian small town. She couldn't see anything out of the ordinary.  
  
Yet this town was supposed to be on a Hellmouth, a centre of mystical power, hidden somewhere in the town was supposed to be an opening to Hell itself. Or something along those lines. Hannah wasn't sure she believed the whole 'on the mouth of hell' thing.  
  
"So how are we going to go about finding Grace?"  
  
They had checked into a local motel, paid in cash and put false names in the register. Thierry thought she was on her way to England. She couldn't have some of his agents running back to him and getting in her way. Oh, she knew he had people of his own out looking for Grace, but wasn't entirely sure how he really felt about her, or how he intended to handle her. It was Hannah's hope that she could find Grace first and talk to her, convince her they really were the good guys.  
  
"My best check is the local high school," Martha answered. "My - I don't feel like doing magic just yet. Something about this place - " Martha shook her head as she unpacked her suitcase.  
  
Hannah stared at her in utter disbelief. "Why?" A witch who didn't want to do magic? It made absolutely no sense what so ever. What was she missing here?  
  
Martha shrugged uncomfortably. "I just don't."  
  
Hannah shook her head, setting up her laptop and Internet connection. She found a website for the high school, the old Sunnydale High had been blown up so all the kids had to be moved somewhere else while it was being rebuilt. She found a map, and stuff on what classes were available and extra curricular activities and the like, but nothing really useful. Hannah wasn't a hacker in any form, and couldn't get anything more.   
  
She knew some witches who were able to use magic to get information from the Internet, but since Martha didn't want to use her power at the moment, that was obviously going to be a problem.  
  
"What is it about this place that makes you not want to use magic?" Hannah pressed, putting her computer away.  
  
Martha dumped a pile of books on her bed. "The whole Hellmouth thing. I'm afraid the energies will be more powerful than I'm used to and something will go wrong. It's hard to explain."  
  
"I'm getting that," Hannah said with a sigh. "I'm *not* getting this Hellmouth thing."  
  
Martha smiled dryly. "It's not our thing. They have a Slayer to fight their battles."  
  
"We have vampire slayers too," Hannah pointed out, immediately thinking of Rashel and Quinn.  
  
"Not like ours. This one was Chosen, part of a long legacy. Ours became Hunters by choice and trained themselves. A Slayer gets super strength. I'm not too sure on the details. But if anyone can help us find Grace, she can." Martha paused. "Providing she doesn't mistake her for a demon and kill her."  
  
"Then we need to make sure that doesn't happen."  
  
Martha nodded in agreement. She checked her watch. "Want to go look around now?"  
  
Hannah nodded. "The sooner we start the search and find Grace before the bad guys do the better."  
  
* * * 


End file.
